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You have heard the story about
the farmer’s wife, I presume. Be
fore you start worrying about
hiding this from the children, let
me reassure you. This IS a story
about a Jewish farmer and his
wife. What’s more he was a farmer
not in Israel, nor in Brazil, not in
Biro Bidjan nor Agentina, but in
midwestern America.
To tell the true, like my Aunt
Jennie used to say (she was a
woman of a few thousand words,
all wrong), it was either marry the
man or give up the chase entirely.
I had already invested too much
time in the pursuifof happiness, so
the Wild Qoats of [[in |_evey
by
ETHEL
L.
LEVEY
:n 1930, without benefit of money
and with a future notably lacking
m prospects, I allowed myself to be
trapped into the holy state of mat
rimony, and for several years
thereafter, lived on a farm.
Even in those halcyon days,
Jewish farmers were not the usual
pattern of Jewish life in our area.
There were about 100,000 Jewish
farmers in the whole country at
the time, most of them concentrated
in New York state. We knew of
only one other m our section, and
he ended up making a fortune in
dried eggs and being cursed by
every G.I. in the U. S. Army and
assorted allies of World War II.
I must remind you that by Oc
tober of 1930 the Great Depression
was off to a running start. The
leadership of our economy and gov
ernment has made valiant efforts
to forget that unhappy disaster;
there is even a solemn ban on the
use of the word. The business cycle
being what it is, depressions occur
every now and then, but pass un
noticed, disguised under pseudon
yms like slight recession, slump,
overproduction, seasonal reductions
or automation, to name but a few.
But the foolhardy couples who set
up housekeeping in those years are
not likely to forget them. Each
time one of us wastes a piece ot
Kleenex, or fills a box for the
rummage sale (contents: 3 boys
shirts without the button-down
collar which Junior won't wear be
cause they are “kookie”; 4 pairs of
drapes with valances: we painted
the living room offwhite this year,
and they don’t match; one set of
Melmac dishes: they refuse to
break, chip, or disappear, and we
are tired of looking at them , we
feel a nagging sense of guilt.
We didn’t just happen on farm
ing as a means of livelihood, nor
were we seeing a walden. If we
were leading lives of quiet desper
ation, we didn't know it. My hus
band had managed an education by
playing football at several colleges
for his tuition and board, and a
summer job delivering milk took
care of the incidentals. He was a
greater reader, and some place
along the route he discovered that
milk came from cows, that some
breeds produce more milk than
others, that proper feeding, clean
quarters, and a kind hand could get
remarkable results, and immediate
ly recognized that he could do all
this better than his boss. It was
close to the end of the High Holy
Day season, so we went to syna
gogue and reminded God of the
gratitude of the children of Israel
for the harvest of their fields and
called His attention to the fact that
we, too, were children of Israel
and expected to have some fields to
harvest in the coming year. With
the prayer and part of a shoe string
from misguided relatives, we
came dairy farmers.
We were tenant farmers, of
course. Who would sell us a farm?
To tell the true (Aunty again) most
solid farming citizens didn’t want
to rent to us either. A good, grass
roots farmer hates having anybody
else on his land. To this day, he
views a city-dweller with a jaun
diced eye and when he meets a
tenant farmer, the eye turns pos-~
itively orange. We finally convinced
ar. elderly couple, bent on retire
ment, who had put their trust in
cash instead of banks, that we were
the soul of honor, the voice of
truth and the heralds of a new
society, and became the proud ten
ants of a ten-room house (we had
furniture for one room), a barn
with 40 stalls (we spaced our fif
teen heads at intervals, so they
wouldn't feel lost), a milk house,
two iheds, one silo, and eighty
acres of virgin soil. Well, practical---
ly virgin, it hadn't been touched
for several years.
The months that followed were
filled with alarums and excursions,
all well outside the scope of the
planning committee. There was a
rumor that the breweries were
going to blow the whistle on near
beer and produce the real stuff
again. We were nothing if not the
eager beavers of the farming pop
ulation. Before you could say
L'Chaim we planted half our acre
age in barley and waited for for
tune and 3.2 per cent beer to fill
our empty pockets, instead, we got
Russian thistles. Never was a plant
more aptly named. The thistles not
only overtook the barley, but like
their country of origin, took over
the fields. As I remember it, after
the plowing, planting, cultivating,
and reaping were over, we owed
the purchasers $5.00. We had cow§
with milk fever, a bull with wan
derlust and a hankering for a prize
winning heifer up the road a piece:
rain when we needed sun, and
steaming heat when the corn wasn’t
even toe high. To top it all, the
price per pound of milk at the
co-op was consistent. It went down
every day, like a top falling from
a spinning rope.
The day the milk price hit a
cent-and-a-half was the day my
husband picked up a book about
goats at the library. I said he was
a great reader. He still is, but his
interests have changed. He never
The Southern Israelite
42